Charter Books will welcome Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of “Pineapple Street” and vice president and editorial director of fiction at Alfred A. Knopf, to Newport for a special event at OceanCliff celebrating her latest novel, “The Shampoo Effect.”
The event will take place Monday, July 13, from 4 to 6 p.m., with the conversation beginning at 4:30 p.m. Jackson will appear in conversation with Kylie McCollough, founder of the Newport Ladies Book Club. Recently selected as Jenna Bush Hager’s July 2026 Read with Jenna pick, “The Shampoo Effect” is a summer read set against the backdrop of coastal New England.
Store owner and general manager Steve Iwanski said the event continues a tradition of marquee summer author talks. “Two years ago, we launched Alison Espach’s The Wedding People at the hotel that inspired the book,” he said. “Last year saw Sarah MacLean discuss These Summer Storms in front of Narragansett Bay, the setting of her New York Times Bestselling novel. You know we love going bigger every year, so for 2026 we’re bringing in Jenny Jackson.”
Iwanski noted that Jackson’s influence extends well beyond her own writing. As an editor, he said, she has delivered to readers books including Gabrielle Zevin’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” and Kevin Kwan’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” and her authors include Dolly Alderton, Chris Bohjalian and Erin Morgenstern.
Charter Books bookseller Elizabeth Fusco offered her own praise for the novel. “Brimming with drama, complexity, and yearning, The Shampoo Effect paints the portrait of the faux-romanticized lives perfected and presented in our online world and burns it down in front of your eyes in the most satisfying way,” she said. “Chances are if you make your way into our store this summer, I’ll be putting it into your hands before you can finish asking for a recommendation.”
“The Shampoo Effect” follows Caroline Lash, who arrives in the coastal village of Greenhead, Massachusetts, and falls for a local named Van Whittaker, upsetting the delicate balance of his longtime circle of friends. When an unexpected pregnancy throws the group off kilter, Caroline is cast out, and what follows exposes long-held secrets and works the whole town into a lather. The book will be published June 30, just days before the event.
The evening will include a discussion followed by a Q&A and book signing. Tickets are $90 and include admission to the reception, a signed copy of the book, a complimentary drink and hors d’oeuvres. OceanCliff’s cash bar will be open during the event, and the Safari Room restaurant is available for dinner afterward.
A graduate of Williams College, Jackson was raised in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and lives in Brooklyn Heights. McCollough, founder of the Newport Ladies Book Club, is known for curating immersive book events and has connected readers with bestselling authors including Elin Hilderbrand and Alison Espach; she is also a luxury realtor in Newport and a former star of Bravo’s “Real Estate Wars.”
Founded in 2020 at 8 Broadway in Newport, Charter Books is an independent bookstore offering new books across all genres. Tickets are available at charterbookstore.com/events.
